Catching Up: June-July: Hampton Court, Sea Sessions, and Howth

So ... it has been quite awhile since we last posted here. Life has been insanely busy in the last couple months, and sadly this blog has been forgotten about.

Hampton Court

Hampton Court

Let's try to catch you up on what we've been up to, shall we? After our Prague trip, we spent a weekend in London with my mom and dad. This might come as a surprise, but despite living just a one-hour plane trip from London for almost two years, we hadn't yet spent any time there that wasn't spent in the airport. So this was our first trip there to actually see anything there. We spent most of Saturday visiting the Hampton Court palace. It was a nice place to visit with a mix of architecture, art, history, and gardens.

The other day in London we mostly spent walking around central london. We walked around St. James Park, saw Buckingham Palace from the outside, saw the London eye, walked around in China town for awhile. It was a pretty nice weekend -- not too fast paced but we still saw a bunch. On the way home, we almost missed our flight by slightly underestimating the time it would take to train it to Gatwick airport. Luckily, we didn't need to check any bags, and a bit of stressful running through the airport found us at our gate before anyone had boarded yet.

Sea Sessions in Bundoran

Sea Sessions in Bundoran

The weekend after London we went up to Bundoran for surfing classes. That weekend, there was a big music festival on called "Sea Sessions". So our weekend involved going to surfing lessons in the morning, and then heading to the festival to listen to some live music and enjoy some tasty beverages. The festival itself was kind of fun, although I didn't really know any of the bands. Probably the highlight was the battle of the bands. There was some pretty talented bands there and I enjoyed most of their sets. It was also the second time we'd been up to Bundoran for surfing, and our 3rd and 4th lessons went pretty well. By partway through the last one, we were starting to figure out turning. Maybe with a few more lessons we'll be pro surfers!

On Canada Day, a pub in town called the Woolshed threw a party that we decided to attend. They served molson canadian, moosehead, and sleemans at the bar (in bottles and cans), played the men's and women's gold medal hockey games from the most recent olympics on the televisions, and had a Canadian DJ playing tunes from Canadian bands like Great Big Sea, The Tragically Hip, Our Lady Peace, etc etc. It was pretty fun.

Hanging Out

Hanging Out

One of our friends, Jess, arrived in Dublin for a few days. On the weekend, we went up to Howth to walk along the cliffs and see the market up there. We had a nice lunch there and watched the seals being fed in the harbour. It was a nice little visit.

The summer really flew by in a hurry!

Morgan